We are a grass roots organization located in both Israel and the United States. Our intention is to be pro-active on behalf of Israel. This means we will identify the topics that need examination, analysis and promotion. Our intention is to write accurately what is going on here in Israel rather than react to the anti-Israel media pieces that comprise most of today's media outlets.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Turnaround: Is Saudi Arabia Shifting Course Towards Iran?

Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud and US President Barack Obama inspect an honour guard

Jerusalem Post, 23/5
A number of recent Saudi moves and official statements have led to
speculation regarding a possible shift on the kingdom’s stance toward
Iran.
The Saudis appear to be moving at least on a declarative level away
from a position according to which Iranian ambitions are a threat to be
resisted, toward an attempt to accommodate Teheran.
The speculation regarding a changed Saudi stance rests largely on three recent public events.
The first was the meeting last month between newly-minted Saudi
ambassador to Teheran Rahman al-Shehri and former Iranian President Ali
Akbar Rafsanjani.
Al-Shehri demonstrably kissed Rafsanjani on the forehead during the
meeting. In addition to demonstrating the depth of the ambassador’s
patriotism, this act was held by some commentators to portend a renewed
Saudi determination to set relations with Iran on a new footing.
The second was the Saudi announcement of an invitation to Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to visit the kingdom.
The third element that many analysts have pointed to in asserting a
change in the direction of Saudi policy is the recent replacement of
Prince Bandar Bin Sultan from his position as head of the Saudi
intelligence services.
Bandar had been associated with a pro-active Saudi policy in Syria,
Lebanon, Bahrain and other points of Saudi-Iranian tension. His
replacement by Mohamed Bin Nayef was seen as portending a less activist
regional policy.
This was accompanied by the replacement of Deputy Defense Minister
Salman Bin Sultan. Bin Sultan is the half brother of Bandar, and like
him was associated with a policy of activist resistance to Iran’s
regional advance.
These Saudi gestures should be placed in a context of clear US
pressure to their Gulf clients to get ‘on board’ with Washington’s
regional diplomacy, close to the center of which appears to be a desire
to ‘flip’ Iran from foe to friend.
According to a report on the Intelligence Online website, both
President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel stressed this
matter in their recent visit to the Gulf. President Obama reportedly
raised the matter in his meeting with King Abdullah bin Aziz.
Hagel, meanwhile, urged greater Saudi ‘openness’ to Iran in meetings with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Salman, deputy crown prince Muqrin and foreign minister Saud al Faisal.
As the nuclear negotiations with Teheran stumble on, and Iran’s
clients hold their own or emerge victorious in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq,
the US remains apparently convinced of its strategy to normalize
relations with Teheran through meeting it halfway.
Saudia Arabia, along with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, has
hitherto remained similarly convinced that Iranian ambitions cannot be
accommodated, without Saudi and western surrender of vital interests. It
is for this reason that they have regarded the current US push for
rapprochement with Teheran to be a fool’s errand.
Again according to Intelligence Online, General Khalifa bin Ahmed al-Khalifa,
the Bahraini chief of staff, bluntly articulated the concerns of the
Gulf Cooperation Council countries with regard to the Iranian threat and
the current US response to it.
The Gulf countries, he said, were ‘profoundly concerned about Iran’s
ambitions to destabilise the region, via its sponsorship of terrorism
from the shores of the Mediterranean to the provinces of southern
Yemen…Your (US) intelligence services have proof of this terrorism
enterprise. What are you doing to halt its spread?”
General Khalifa went on to accuse the US of ‘backing down’ over Syria and letting Assad’s ‘chemical attacks go unpunished.’
Gulf concerns are not hard to understand. The goal of ending the
presence of foreign (ie US) forces in the Gulf is a core Iranian
strategic objective. Teheran regards its own domination of the Persian
Gulf as a ‘natural’ state of affairs reflecting Iran’s greater
demographic and societal strength compared with the fragile, energy-rich
Arab monarchies on the other side of the Gulf.
Iran has also shown skill and determination in the pursuit of its
goals further afield over the last turbulent decade in the region.
How then to explain the Saudis’ apparent about-face and attempt to get behind US policy?
The Saudis are aware that the US remains the main physical guarantor
of Gulf security, whatever the problems with its current strategy. Other
Gulf countries are aware of this too.
There are no indications that the current Administration has any
intention of reducing the US military presence of 35,000 personnel in
the Gulf, including the 5th Fleet and a number of advanced missile defense systems.
Indeed, Hagel went out of his way during his visit to the Gulf to
stress the continued US commitment to this presence and to Gulf
security, regardless of the differences over Iran policy.
It has also long been the contention of many of the most astute Gulf
analysts that it would be mistaken to imagine that Saudi Arabia will
constitute an unyielding bulwark to Iranian ambitions, if it becomes
clear that the US and the west prefer to accommodate the Iranians. The
Saudi kingdom is simply too fragile an entity to play such a role.
Rather, if western weakness in the face of the Iranian advance becomes
apparent, Riyadh is likely to accommodate itself to the new situation.
The Saudi shifting strategy in Syria – which over the last three
years has gone from supporting Islamist and jihadi groups to seeking to
offer limited support to the rebels largely within the definitions and
dictates of US policy – may offer a window into the current broader
direction of Saudi policy toward Teheran.
This runs along clear lines of basic disagreement toward the regional
strategy being pursued by the Obama Administration, a pragmatic
awareness of the need to appear to accommodate Washington’s declared
direction, and energetic efforts to prepare as best Riyadh can to cope
with the challenges of a Middle East in which a continued Iranian
advance seems to be a given.
Are these on the evidence available likely to produce a changed Saudi
policy with regard to Iran? The answer is yes. Increased direct or
mediated dialogue between the two at the very least is likely. It may
also be that the shift will produce concrete policy results in specific
regional ‘files’ of contention – such as Yemen, Lebanon or even Syria –
as the Saudis seek to avoid confrontation with the advancing Iranian
power.
The lesson of all this is that there is no simple regional substitute
for US leadership in the effort to hold back the advance of Iran – both
on the nuclear track and with regard to Teheran’s broader regional
ambitions of which the nuclear drive constitutes a crucial component.
The problem is that the current US Administration is embarked on a
course which is producing Iranian victories. Saudi Arabia, because of
perceived necessity, appears for now to be adjusting its own course to
follow this path.

Caroline Glick & Mark Levin: The Israeli Solution -- A One-State Pla

Why Israel Opposes International Forces in the Jordan Valley

U.S. scholars' group votes in favor of academic boycott of Israel

Yet another indication of the absolute corruption of American academia today. "US scholars' group votes in favor of academic boycott of Israel," from the Jerusalem Post, December 16: NEW YORK – The 5,000-member American Studies Association (ASA), which describes itself as “the nation’s oldest and largest association devoted to...http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/12/us-scholars-group-votes-in-favor-of-academic-boycott-of-israel.html

Israel Living Prophecy

A senior New Israel Fund officer told a U.S. official in 2010 that the disappearance of the Jewish state would not be a tragedy, according to a document that was leaked by Wikileaks...She commented that she believed that in 100 years Israel would be majority Arab and that the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic.

Mideast expert Michael Widlanski: Fatah is a joke

US-Israeli talks focus on Ahmadinejad's possible ouster

How to exploit the deep cracks forming in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration for removing the Iranian president was a top item on the agenda of the high-level talks between Barack Obama's advisers and Israeli officials at Mossad headquarters in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, Wednesday, July 29.

DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report that Ahmadinejad's cabinet is falling apart; of his original lineup of 21 ministers, only nine remain at their posts.

The Identity Of The Land

Why the Palestinians need to recognize the Jewish State

We do NOT support a 2-state solution

A January 2009 poll found that Americans oppose creating a Palestinian state by 45-31 percent. A February 2009 Maagar Mohot Survey Institute poll has also shown that Israelis oppose creating a Palestinian state by 51-32 percent.

Many other polls tell a similar story.

These figures suggest that Americans and Israelis have understood that creating a Palestinian state under current conditions will not bring peace but merely another terror state.

Netanya,Israel

Jerusalem At Night

Why reconstruct Gaza without making demands

- that Shalit be release without convicted terrorists being released by Israel in exchange,

- that the US be put in charge of the southern border to ensure that Hamas isn’t rearmed?

- that their three preconditions be accepted by Hamas, i.e. agree to all former agreements,recognize Israel and renounce terror

- that Hamas amend their Charter

- That Hamas disconnect from Iran

The answer is that they don’t want to.

Children of Hamas

Picture of Hamas children the media does not show you

IDF: Civilian Deaths in Gaza Less than 25% of Total

A maximum of 25% of the Palestinians killed in Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli operation are innocent civilians, the head of the IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), Col. Moshe Levi, said Wednesday. According to Palestinian medical officials, Israel has killed some 1,000 Palestinians and more than half of them are civilians. Levi said the CLA had compiled a list with the names of 900 Palestinians killed during the fighting. He said that 150 names were of women, children and elderly, and that the maximum number of civilians killed so far was 250. Levi also dismissed claims that 43 Palestinians were killed in an IDF attack on a Hamas terror cell that was firing mortars at Israeli forces from within an UNRWA school in Jabalya. Levi said 21 Palestinians were killed in the attack, including a number of Hamas operatives. (Jerusalem Post)

Hamas teaching the children of Gaza

An Iranian reformist daily newspaper has criticized Hamas "for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals." This is reported in today's Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam. The Palestinian daily adds that in response the Iranian government has closed the newspaper.

"The Iranian news agency "Irna" reported yesterday, that the Iranian Culture Ministry has closed the reformist daily newspaper "Karjo Zaran", because it published a report that included criticism of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). On December 30 the paper published a statement of a reformist student organization, that has criticized Hamas for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals. The statement was published whilst the Iranian government expresses a unified stands against Israel, and Tehran is overwhelmed by demonstrations against Israel."

[Al-Ayyam, Jan. 1, 2009] Thanks PMW

Iran-backed Hamas Rocket, Mortar Attacks and Nuclear Developments

9,400+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2003. [1]3,200+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza in 2008 alone. [2]6,500+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. [3]543+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israeli territory during the ceasefire from June 19 to Dec. 19, 2008. [4]28 deaths caused by rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel since 2001. The dead include Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire ended, Iran-backed Palestinian groups in Gaza fired rockets and mortars that killed an Israeli-Arab construction worker and a mother of four who was seeking shelter in a bus station as a rocket warning siren sounded. [5]1,000+ people in Israel injured from rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2001, including Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire, 44 Israelis have been injured and 200 have been treated for shock. [6]Thanks Israel Project

It began with this...

The British Foreign Office, November 2nd, 1917Dear Lord Rothschild,I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate theachievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities inPalestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.2

Signed,Arthur James Balfour[Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs]

Favorite Books

While Europe Slept

About Me

Semi-retired Professor, now also permanent resident of Israel;divides time between both countries-serves on several Boards of Directors for Israel advocacy groups;Chana, resident of Jerusalem, JCPA member

Syria is an Occupier-Are You Listening World?

As of this minute, Syria occupies at least 177 square miles of Lebanese soil. That you are now reading about it for the first time is as much a scandal as the occupation itself.

The news comes by way of a fact-finding survey of the Lebanese-Syrian border just produced by the International Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, an American NGO that has consultative status with the UN. In meticulous detail - supplemented by photographs and satellite images - the authors describe precisely where and how Lebanon has been infiltrated.

Though the land grabs are small affairs individually, they collectively add up to an area amounting to about 4% of Lebanese soil - in U.S. terms, the proportional equivalent of Arizona. Of particular note is that the area of Syrian conquest dwarves that of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms which amount to an area of about 12 square miles.

It would be nice to see the Arab world protest this case of illegal occupation, given its passions about the subject.

Information worth Possessing

"Israel gave the Palestinians an autonomy in 42% of the West Bank and Gaza after the Oslo accords in the early 90's. Over 92% of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza were then under the administration of the Palestinian Authority and its Chairman Yasser Arafat.

"Israel is surrounded by 10 hostile Arab countries who do not even recognize its right to exist ( Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Lybia, Morocco, Tunisia, Aden) and Iran"